“Caches cannot be placed or constructed as to create a situation dangerous or potentially dangerous for park visitors.” - Before you place your cache, I’d recommend you think about the lawyer someone who has been injured will hire. The phrase “Potentially Dangerous” is wide open to interpretation. Think it through before placing anything greater than a 1.5/1.5 cache. Stepping off the trail can be potentially dangerous.

“Dakota County Parks retains the right to charge for administrative costs associated with excessive management of a particular cache” – Excessive is defined as exceeding a normal, usual amount. Normal is no management of a geocache site, so be prepared to pay if they walk out to check on one of your caches. Be prepared to pay a landscaper to repair a cacher trail. As ridiculous as this may sound, in today’s world, this stuff happens and you need to think about it. It’s up to them to decide if they want to enforce the policy, but if they do, you could get hit $$$!

Or worse. The sherriff's department may want to be reimbursed for making themselves look bad while they're investigating your malplaced cache.

I'm glad you keep reminding us what brought on this new policy

Combatative? Figures. The policy has been in progress starting all the way back when CAG's rope ladder cache brought attention to geocaching in county parks. And that's not blaming CAG either. The fact is, if you look at the map of all the boxes in the park, a policy was inevitable, regardless of rope ladders, coffins, or toilet seats or pulleys in the trees etc etc.

“Caches cannot be placed or constructed as to create a situation dangerous or potentially dangerous for park visitors.” - Before you place your cache, I’d recommend you think about the lawyer someone who has been injured will hire. The phrase “Potentially Dangerous” is wide open to interpretation. Think it through before placing anything greater than a 1.5/1.5 cache. Stepping off the trail can be potentially dangerous.

“Dakota County Parks retains the right to charge for administrative costs associated with excessive management of a particular cache” – Excessive is defined as exceeding a normal, usual amount. Normal is no management of a geocache site, so be prepared to pay if they walk out to check on one of your caches. Be prepared to pay a landscaper to repair a cacher trail. As ridiculous as this may sound, in today’s world, this stuff happens and you need to think about it. It’s up to them to decide if they want to enforce the policy, but if they do, you could get hit $$$!

I don't feel terribly put out by the policy as written. While it would be easier for me to navigate life if there were no rules of any kind (geocaching or otherwise), if I put myself in their shoes I do understand the reasoning.

Initially, when I read what RudeRat posted, I thought - OH, that gives me something to think about - maybe worry about being potentially liable for something I didn't foresee. However, think about this: By having an accepted registration - yes, complete with a picture of the hide container and hide area - much (maybe all) of the responsibility for the future liability of the hide is likely transfered to the county. If they approve a cache, they're giving tacit agreement that it's a good place to place a cache and it's a good container. If a question comes up later (relandscaping, sheriff, etc) we would have the ability to wave EXHIBIT A in their face and say that we asked very explicity and were given pre-approval to proceed - the county reviewer/approver takes on the responsibility inherent with the process._________________-Paklid

The fact is, if you look at the map of all the boxes in the park, a policy was inevitable, regardless of rope ladders, coffins, or toilet seats or pulleys in the trees etc etc.

I tend to agree with Bart here. I think the policy is a result of geocaches in the park. The fact that it's coming at the same time as a more memorable cache isn't necessarily coincidence, but I know the policy has been a topic for a period of time long before a coffin showed up in the woods.

Policies are often born of poor cache placement - parks see something that they don't like in the woods and a policy is born. That isn't the case here though - Dakota County has talked about a policy for many years now. It could have just as easily been a poorly placed ammo can that caused this to happen, or even a properly placed ammo can that a non-cacher stumbled upon and called 911._________________Hmm...

the county reviewer/approver takes on the responsibility inherent with the process.

Just to play devil's advocate here, but where does SJ's responsibility fall in this? I honestly don't think I know the answer and would be interested in the discussion.

To me he's not liable any more than Groundspeak, which has a disclaimer that is shown when you load cache pages (which doesn't mean much either IMHO). I'd be interested in a discussion as well as a lawyer's take on it, although I'm not aware of any lawyers that are currently active in the organization (that are willing to speak up)._________________Hmm...

I was pretty shocked when I first looked at the Schaar's Bluff map, but on further study, I think I may have two caches in the off-limits area, and I'm not that enthusiastic about either of them anyway. Most of their off-limits areas in that park are the open public spaces near picnic shelters and such._________________Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Don't drink & deriv

Brad, speedysk1, and whoever else has been trying so hard to work with these folks, do they realize that when a cache that has been registered with them is archived at geocaching.com, that their database will be obsolete? And that, when the next guy comes along and places a cache nearby, and there are problems with that cache, that they may contact the guy that once had an archived cache nearby?

As I've said before, I have no problem with providing them extended contact information for them to use in case of a potential incident. My problem has to do with not only my extra work of redundantly logging my cache with them, but that information is already available to them in a much better, fresher form through the geocaching website. Oh yeah... and that my taxes are paying for such stupidity._________________Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Don't drink & deriv